


Hearts Beating Each To Each

by Rubynye



Category: White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Aftercare, Crying, Double Penetration, F/M, M/M, Mentions of alcohol, Multi, Nonmonogamy, Polyamory, Possessive Behavior, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Cuddles, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:34:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28380246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: Elizabeth contemplates Neal, and Peter’s attraction to him.
Relationships: Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey
Comments: 12
Kudos: 55
Collections: Holly Poly 2020





	Hearts Beating Each To Each

**Author's Note:**

  * For [china_shop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/gifts).



> Written for the 2020 Holly Poly ficathon, and as a treat for my friend. Title from "Meeting at Night" by Robert Browning.

For a pretty long time all Elizabeth thinks about is the glow in every cell, the fading intensity between her legs, the warmth of her firm pillow as Neal breathes slowly and evenly beneath her cheek, as they recover together from a fairly astonishing bout of sex. They’d indulged Peter’s bossy mood tonight, and he’d arranged them so he and Neal could fuck her at the same time, which felt pretty much like Peter was fucking them both at the same time, one hand clamped onto her waist and one flat beside Neal’s neck. Remembering that now, she squeezes around the lingering tingles within her, and smiles a little to herself. 

Neal’s breathing hitches slightly. She’d thought he was asleep.

Elizabeth’s head feels extra-heavy with lassitude, but she lifts it enough to see Neal staring up at the ceiling for the barest moment before he looks down at her with a smile unfurling across his sensual mouth. A slightly too perfect smile, as he caresses her shoulder, slides his hand up her nape into her hair and then along her cheek.

So Elizabeth doesn’t press into Neal’s warm hand, or lay her head back down. She returns his gaze, looking at him, past his dazzling beauty, past the image he likes to project. He likes being her and Peter’s sex toy, she can still feel the afterglow of how _much_ he likes it, but she wants him to know he’s much more than that to her too.

He already knows he’s far more than that to Peter. Peter who had kissed Elizabeth all over her back as he steadily stared into Neal’s eyes the whole time tonight, as she shuddered and cried out between them and Neal’s gasps cracked into increasing sobs as he stared right back until he arched his beautiful neck and burst into frank tears as he came. And Elizabeth started crying right along with him, face pressed into his chest, even as she came for the last time, quivering and clenching around them both inside her.

Neal’s fake smile is fading, and Elizabeth’s real smile is blooming, stretching her cheeks, if less than getting her mouth around his cock did. “Hey,” she murmurs, and remembers Peter gasping over both of them, frantically hugging both of them, coughing up her name before he’d even caught his breath, his fingers gentle on Neal’s cheek. 

She giggles, and Neal raises an eyebrow, and she explains, “The look on Peter’s face,” and watches Neal’s eyes squeeze shut as he grins. Rolling his head back ruffles his hair across her pillow, and she plants her hand and shifts herself upwards — oh, it feels good to slide up along his sculpted body — until she can rest her cheek beside his and bury her hand in his hair.

Neal’s eyes open wide again, as blue as hers and now very round, still tinged with red from crying, and his forehead ruffles up, as he presses his hands to her shoulder and her arm, as he parts his lips, obviously searching for a believable way to say 'I'm ok'.

Elizabeth remembers Peter kissing her, curved over her, stroking the tears from her cheeks with his thumb, and then looking upwards to Neal and pulling him up to kiss him just a bit harder, a little rougher, a bit more fiercely, as Neal gripped Peter’s shoulder and snuffled and kissed him back until his shakes smoothed out. And then Peter pulled back from them and said, “I’m just — a shower —“ and went to regroup under hot water, while Elizabeth and Neal slumped together into a recalibrating little pile. Now she strokes her hand through his hair, and his wild eyes start to calm, stroke by stroke, his mouth eases away from convenient lies.

There’s so much she could say, about how she sees why Peter wanted to — not to own Neal, but to take possession of him, enfold and protect him somehow. They’re alike that way, they both love a little vulnerability. Elizabeth met Peter when he was nursing an injury, after all. She wants to take care of Neal too. She watches his long lashes fall and his forehead smooth out, even as his hands tremble on her skin and then ease again, as his eyes slide shut and he tips a little more towards her.

Then he smiles, a more complicated, more truthful smile, and she knows he knows everything she'd say. She leans in to kiss him lightly and he purses his lips to hers, and then smiles against her mouth, and she leans her forehead against his and closes her eyes as well, moving her hand steadily through Neal’s soft damp hair as he relaxes beside her, alongside her.

The thing is, Neal says things sometimes, between the second and the fourth drink. Things that are sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, always worth hearing, and Elizabeth’s learned to listen, as his moonlike eyes focus on the distance and ice clinks in the circle of his hand. She thinks about some of them now, as Neal lies warm and unstrung beside her, as she soothes herself by soothing him. How he told her and Peter that he only thought he knew how to fight till he went to prison and found out the hard way that he didn't. His childhood awe the first time he saw an art museum, the IDs he forged to schools across the city, the way paint curves across canvas. Once he’d said to Elizabeth how much he’d look like her if he were a woman. “A little taller,” she’d replied, "and pointier tits," just as Peter stepped into the doorway and stopped still when they both turned to him. They snickered knowingly together, and the next morning Neal grinned at Elizabeth across Peter's broad back. 

Neal’s hand curves a little more to Elizabeth’s shoulder, long fine fingers cradling her skin, as she thinks about the things he says, and the things Peter does, and how hard Peter made her come the night of the day he finally caught Neal. How after dinner tonight Neal took a deep sip of his third whiskey and told her the first few times they'd had sex he’d expected Peter to bend him over something but instead Peter kept him on his back and held his hair to watch his face, and she took a deep breath and told him, “Peter did that the first several times he took me to bed, too, and on our wedding night.” The way Neal’s eyebrows lifted, and then settled, and the easing realization she watched wash over him as he put down the glass and reached for her hand.

The shower shuts off, and Elizabeth hopes Peter will come back to them soon, that he wasn’t too rattled, and, just a tiny bit selfishly, that she doesn’t need to get out of bed to go get him. But Peter comes back, warm and scrubbed, and she pushes her eyes open to meet his, to see him smile.

Neal doesn’t move, finally relaxed, finally asleep. 

“Hey,” Peter murmurs, passing a hand over hers on Neal’s soft hair. “You two all right?”

Elizabeth looks at Neal’s smoothed, beautiful, achingly young face, and back up to Peter’s craggy concerned handsomeness, into his bottomless brown eyes. “Yeah, Honey,” she tells him, resting her cheek on Neal's solid shoulder. “We’re both just fine.”

* * *

Sometime deep in the night the bed shifts and Elizabeth stirs, a wisp of draft making her open an eye. One arm around her shoulders, Peter is snoring gently on his back — she really should prod him onto his side — and Neal is a pale column beyond him, sitting up on the edge of the bed, his leg over the side, his arm angled back towards Peter, whose hand is wrapped around Neal’s wrist. Oh. 

Neal is looking down at his captive hand, his lashes fanned out on his cheekbones, visible even in the blue dimness, his lush mouth pressed just a little tightly. Elizabeth blinks, lifting her head, and Neal lifts his eyes to hers, with a little shrug and no fake smile. 

Elizabeth pushes thought through her groggy brain. Her first idea is to pry Peter’s hand open, but then he’ll wake up, and notice he’s been holding onto Neal in his sleep, and things will become Weird. No one needs Weird. Instead she shifts more onto him, privately loving how broad and solid he always is, and reaches out to set her hand on his curled fingers. 

Neal lays his hand over hers, and it’s like softening wax. A few long nighttime moments, and Peter’s fingers relax. Neal gracefully twists his hand free and Peter murmurs something lightly displeased, so Elizabeth runs her hand softly up his arm, and he rolls towards her.

She looks up, a little worried, but Neal just rubs his wrist and crooks his fingers, and smiles at her, slowly, softly, his eyes glinting in the dark. He reaches for her hand and kisses behind her knuckles, lightly but lingering.

Elizabeth stifles a giggle, curling her fingers over his and tugging, and Neal lies down again, pulling the blanket up over all of them, resting his cheek on Peter’s ribs as he wraps himself around Peter from behind. He slings his leg across Peter’s to pat her toes with his, as Peter settles his arm around Neal and presses his face into the pillow and his breathing settles out.

Neal reaches to touch her cheek, thumb brushing her eyelid closed, and Elizabeth shuts both eyes, warmly pressed to Peter with Neal’s hand loosely draped on her arm, and drifts off into contentment.


End file.
